Global Catastrophes – A Very Short Introduction

An informative if dispiriting update on when and how the world might come to an end, whether natural or human induced. It is sobering to read that an average of over 100,000 people perish every year from natural disasters and that they have cost around $1 trn in the last seven years. McGuire covers the history of the Earth, the likely consequences of global warming, the prospect of the next Ice Age, eruptions and Tsunamis, earthquakes - including the overdue recurrence of the 1923 Kanto Earthquake in Tokyo (population 37m) - and the threat from space. He summarises all this in the epilogue, which makes pretty grim reading – and the prospects for a course correction are not bright given our track record of political and economic short-termism and our preference for technical fixes rather than lifestyle modification.